The Independent Researcher

Imagine studying something that nobody else is studying, for reasons you can’t really articulate, without knowing what the outcome of your work will be. For the truly obsessed person, the need for validation isn’t about ego; it’s about sanity. You want to know there’s some meaning behind the dizzying mental labyrinth that you simultaneously can’t e

These days, if you say you work in research, most people assume you work in academia. But it’s sort of odd that we assume you need someone’s permission to do research. There’s no reason that universities need to be the gatekeepers of exploring and developing new ideas.

Sometimes, a lack of training can produce even more interesting results. I was reminded of this recently after hearing a talk by Charles Mann, author of The Wizard and the Prophet. He told the story of Norman Borlaug, an agronomist who developed disease-resistant wheat varieties that are estimated to have prevented over half a billion deaths worldw

Life is short. Do whatever you can’t stop thinking about. Documenting your findings in public (regardless of outcomes!) is a worthy contribution to society, full stop. If you’re doing something new, and you care about understanding the problem, people will pay attention. What’s more, they’ll take your ideas and make them better than you’d ever imag

Institutions can also help enable more independent research. I’m lucky to have found an organization, Protocol Labs, that funds research in all sorts of unusual ways. Having tried this both ways, I can say that having a steady salary (and health insurance!) allows me to do much better work than when I was worried about my next source of funding. Li

This is the dark side of independent research. Without external validation - “I teach at Stanford” or “I got a grant from NASA”, it’s hard to convince people that you’re any good at what you do. The same goes for your output: you want peers to acknowledge and review your work, or the signoff of a well-respected journal.

You don’t need a PhD to study something you care about. You don’t need to publish papers in academic journals to become widely respected. You just need a curious mind, a bankroll, and a commitment to learning in public. Producing work that makes other people think, and perhaps change their behavior, is the validation, and it’s enormously satisfying